Stuffed Mushrooms with Sausage and Herbs

Tasty Little Morsels
Man, are you as bored with your appetizer spread as I am? I mean seriously, how many olives and cheese platters can you put out? Or how about chips, salsa and guac? All good stuff, but every weekend? Last night we celebrated a good buddy's birthday and we expanded our horizons a bit. Remember stuffed mushrooms - double yum. These smell unreal and taste even better - Seriously.

Ingredients:

• 12 large mushrooms
• 3-4 T Parmesan
• 1/2 # ground Italian Sausage (I used spicy)
• 3 oz fresh wild mushrooms such as shitake or oyster mushrooms
• 12-14 sprigs fresh tarragon
• 10-12 fresh sprigs chervil
• 7-10 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 3/4 C chopped walnuts
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/4 C olive oil (you can use much less if you prefer)
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 6 T heavy cream (you can use fat free half and half if you prefer)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

• Pull stems from the large mushrooms, leaving the caps whole for stuffing. Wipe the caps with a damp paper towel. Set aside in your baking dish.
• Wipe the wild mushrooms with a damp cloth and trim the stems.
• Finely chop the wild mushrooms
• Set aside 4 sprigs of each herb for garnish. Chop the remaining herbs and combine with Parmesan cheese.
• Coarsely chop the walnuts
• Cook ground sausage in frying pan until done - 5 min
• In another frying pan heat 3-4 T olive oil
• Add the chopped mushrooms, garlic and lemon juice, salt and pepper.
• Cook until all the liquid has evaporated - 3-5 min.
• Stir in the cream and cook until slightly thickened - 1-2 min
• Add the cooked sausage, chopped walnuts, herbs and Parmesan
• Heat the oven to 350 degrees
• Lightly oil your baking dish
• Spoon 1-2 T of mixture into each mushroom cap, mounding it well.
• Set the stuffed mushroom in your prepared baking dish
• Sprinkle about 1t of parmesean over the stuffed mushrooms
• Lightly drizzle olive oil over the stuffed mushrooms
• Place in the over for 15-20 min - until mushrooms are tender when pierced and the filling is very HOT
• Garnish serving dish with remaining sprigs